Revamping your email systems- part 1

Email can be controlled. If you want it to be. As a business owner, before you hire someone to deal with your email, you need a system they can follow. There are a lot of systems, I just want to share the simple one I use to clear my inbox every day that I work. I don’t clear it daily because I take days off. Even if I am behind in work or behind in my goals. That’s a post for another day.

There are 5 things that need to happen with email

Delete- just delete the stuff you dont care about and are not going to read. Remove yourself from an email list that you find you are not really reading what they send over a month. It saves you the visual garbage and its saves THEM money, not paying to email you when you no longer wish to get them or read them.

Delegate- There are things that other people need to handle for you. Assistant, virtual assistant, whoever you delegate to, just send the email over to them. If you have prepared them well, they can handle it. Don’t micro manage, just ask them to handle it and unless they make a huge mistake, understand they will not handle it the way YOU would. They are not you, however, their solution can work and leave you free to do the things you can not delegate

Respond- answer the question, buy the thing, add it to your calendar, read the email and get the update…whatever the response is, do it and then archive the email

Defer- this is for things you do not have time to deal with. You must also have time on your calendar each week to go through what is Deferred or risk dropping the ball on business activities and thereby losing money.

Do- Some email mean taking an action, do it right then and there.

if an email has been handled, then delete or archive it.

You email box will be empty after practicing this for about a month. Teach it and delegate this to an assistant and stop sweating about your email. Be efficient, get rid of spam and live a normal live. Nothing is great about having a huge number of emails sitting around.

It used to be a sign of how busy you are, now, it’s a sign of how inefficient you are. If I want to work with you and hear you an a huge overflowing full email box— ALL THE TIME– Then I am going to think again. If you can’t handle your email, you might not be a good match to work with me. There is a point when you need to upgrade your systems.